NRMA Motoring and Services

Travelers’ Organization Gains 90 Percent in IT Efficiency with New Antivirus Solution

NRMA Motoring and Services is a member-owned organization that provides travel services such as roadside assistance, travel advice, and hotel lodging across Australia. NRMA operations involve about 1,300 employees scattered across dozens of metropolitan and remote offices, all of whom have personal computers that need to be protected from Internet-based threats. Concerned about the cost and level of security provided by its old PC-security software, the IT department at NRMA decided to deploy Microsoft® Forefront™ Client Security. The new software has improved the overall security of the organization’s PCs, with more viruses being detected faster. At the same time, the management tools available with Forefront Client Security are helping to streamline IT tasks, reducing the overall cost of ownership for the security solution.

Situation

NMRA Motoring and Services began its operations in the early 1920s, when horse-drawn buggies were still a common sight. Today the organization has about 4 million members across Australia and provides services that include roadside assistance for car breakdowns, travel advisories, discounts on various travel services, and a hotel chain. Headquartered in Sydney, NMRA has about 1,300 employees working from dozens of metropolitan-area offices and smaller facilities throughout the country to help travelers.

With our previous antivirus solution, we were getting an average of 25 PC security–related issues a week. With Forefront Client Security, we’re down to about 10 a week.  Tom Sammons Server/Desktop Team Leader, IT Department NRMA

The IT network that helps run this dispersed organization includes approximately 600 workstation PCs, about 100 portable computers, and 600 ruggedized portable PCs that are used in roadside assistance vans. All of these computers run the Windows® XP Service Pack 2 operating system. NRMA also has about 100 Citrix-based, thin-client terminals in remote offices.

Maintaining smooth operations across the country keeps the NRMA IT department’s 35 employees busy. One of their jobs is to ensure that the organization’s scattered base of computers is protected against viruses and other Internet-based threats. It’s a significant challenge that relies heavily on the security software installed on the PCs.

Unfortunately for NRMA, the antivirus software that it had relied on for several years did not always work. “We had a significant virus attack that our antivirus software did not detect,” says Tom Sammons, Server/Desktop Team Leader for the NRMA IT Department. “The attack affected about 50 of our PCs, causing them to shut down, and it took our team more than four hours to isolate the cause and restore the PCs.”

The NRMA IT administrators were also frustrated by the absence of good management tools for the antivirus software. For example, they had to use separate PC consoles to manage security functionality, and the process of producing regular reports on antivirus activity was so cumbersome that the administrators rarely used it. The absence of clear visibility into the health of the organization’s PCs created a scenario in which IT administrators could only react to virus-related issues after users called the help desk.

Solution

To help improve the security of its PCs, NRMA decided to switch to Microsoft® Forefront™ Client Security, part of the Microsoft Forefront comprehensive line of business security products. Forefront Client Security helps protect PCs and servers against threats such as viruses, worms, Trojan horses, spyware, and rootkits.

NRMA worked with Data#3, an Australia-wide IT solution company to deploy Forefront Client Security across the enterprise. The project began in November 2007 and was completed in February 2008. Forefront Client Security is integrated with several other Microsoft products, including the Active Directory® service—part of the Windows Server® 2003 operating system used by NRMA—along with Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007 and Microsoft Operations Manager 2005.

Benefits

The NRMA deployment of Microsoft Forefront Client Security has improved the overall security of the organization’s PCs, has eased management tasks for the IT department, and is helping to reduce the total cost of ownership for the company’s PC security. The new security software is helping to track viruses and other malicious software (malware) that would have slipped through in the past. Forefront Client Security integrates tightly with other Microsoft products, which helps ease the overall IT management of the PC security solution. It also provides NRMA with greater visibility through better reporting on the health of the organization’s computers.

Enhances PC Security

By deploying Forefront Client Security, NRMA has improved security for its PCs. Now, there are about 60 percent fewer PC virus and malware issues each week. “The Forefront Client Security scan engine provides a greater level of security for our PCs,” says Sammons. “With our previous antivirus solution, we were getting an average of 25 PC security–related issues a week. With Forefront Client Security, we’re down to about 10 a week. Even during the initial pilot phase of deployment, Forefront Client Security immediately detected several viruses on a couple of our development-stage PCs inside the IT department.”

The integration of Forefront Client Security with Active Directory makes it really easy to provision any new or rebuilt PC.  Tom Sammons Server/Desktop Team Leader, IT Department NRMA

As the Forefront Client Security deployment went deeper throughout the organization, more viruses were detected. “Forefront Client Security identifies more viruses and does the detection more quickly than our old security software. And the built-in antispyware is definitely a bonus,” Sammons says. “Forefront Client Security helps us clean up the PCs more quickly before the malware becomes a serious problem, and it helps us protect the PCs against spyware without needing additional software.”

Integrates Better with IT System, Uses Fewer IT Resources

The tight integration of Forefront Client Security with other Microsoft software improves the performance and management of the security solution, and it has helped reduce the overall cost of ownership for PC security. The NRMA IT department used to spend about 10 hours a week dealing with PC- security management. With Forefront Client Security, it now takes about one hour a week, a 90 percent gain in IT resources that can be redirected to other tasks.

One way that management is streamlined is by integrating Forefront Client Security with other system components, such as the Active Directory service.

“This is a key differentiator for Forefront Client Security,” says Scott Gosling, National Microsoft Services Practices Manager for Data#3. “Other PC-security solutions frequently require the use of multiple monitors because they don’t integrate well, and sometimes that causes IT administrators to lose track of what’s going on. It is much simpler with Forefront Client Security, because it shows up in the same console that is being used for other system tasks.”

Among those tasks is the process of provisioning PCs that are to be added to the network, a process that is now much easier.

“The integration of Forefront Client Security with Active Directory makes it really easy to provision any new or rebuilt PC,” says Sammons. “We simply add that particular PC to a group in Active Directory, and Forefront Client Security is automatically installed. It is a job that literally takes just a couple of seconds. In the past, we would have had to go through several steps, including firing up a separate console, adding the PC to the group, and making sure the antivirus software was properly deployed. It was time-consuming, and sometimes we missed some PCs because of that. Now we know that every PC is supported immediately by Forefront Client Security.”

Improves Visibility into PC Health

“With our previous antivirus solution, we really didn’t have much in the way of reporting because it was too hard to figure out. It was not intuitive, and the vendor’s partners did not provide much help,” Sammons says. Now, however, the reporting functionality that is built into Forefront Client Security gives the NRMA IT department a powerful tool for easily monitoring the health of the organization’s PCs. With this tool, the department is able to resolve virus-related issues about 65 percent faster than in the past.

“The reporting in Forefront Client Security is very easy to use. It literally takes just the click of a button, and you can pull up a report. We now run weekly reports and random reports when we feel it’s needed. It gives us greater insight into the health of our PCs and greater confidence that the computers on our network are well protected against external threats.”

For More Information

For more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234 in the United States or (905) 568-9641 in Canada. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to:
www.microsoft.com

For more information about Data#3 products and services, call (02) 1300 23 28 23 or visit the Web site at:
www.data3.com.au

For more information about NRMA Motoring and Services products and services, call (02) 8741 6000 or visit the Web site at:
www.mynrma.com.au

Partner Involvement

Data#3 is an Australia-wide information and telecommunications technology solution company and employs about 400 people. Data#3 assisted NRMA Motoring and Services in deploying Microsoft Forefront Client Security to enhance security for the NRMA IT network.

Microsoft Forefront Product Portfolio

The Microsoft Forefront comprehensive line of business security products provides greater protection and control through integration with your existing IT infrastructure and through simplified deployment, management, and analysis. Forefront is a comprehensive solution that helps provide protection for the client operating system, application servers, and the network edge.

For more information about the Forefront product portfolio, go to:
www.microsoft.com/forefront 

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.

Document published July 2008